In U.S. Pat. No. 4,625,854, there is disclosed a container transfer system including an in-feed conveyor for delivering newly formed, uncoated plastic containers in a single file to a handling and conveying system. A transfer conveyor reorients the container from an upright condition to a substantially horizontal condition moving in timed and spaced relationship to a series of container holding devices on a carrier conveyor. The carrier conveyor is positioned adjacent the transfer conveyor and the container holding devices are advanced toward and grip each container at its neck to remove it from the transfer conveyor and then move the containers to subsequent finishing operations. In a typical finishing operation, the moving container holding devices position the containers within a coating chamber, rotate the containers within the coating chamber to assure full and uniform coating of the containers and to provide sufficient rotational movement so that the coating does not sag or drip but is evenly distributed, and thereafter move the containers into and through a curing oven.
In U.S. Pat. No. 4,640,406, the carrier conveyor and the container holding devices are described in greater detail. As therein shown, one form of container holding device extends in a generally horizontal orientation from one side of the carrier conveyor and includes an inner housing slidably mounted on a supporting spindle, an outer housing rotatably mounted with respect to the inner housing and slidably mounted with respect to the spindle, and a container gripping member at the outer end of the outer housing for gripping a container by its neck. Two forms of gripping members are disclosed, one for gripping around the outer diameter (exterior) surface of the neck and the other for gripping the inner diameter (interior) surface of a container adjacent its open end. The latter form of gripping member includes a mandrel provided with a plurality of grooves for receiving O-rings for engaging the interior surface of the container for retaining the container on the mandrel. The other form of gripping member includes an open ended collet divided into several segments by slits which segments act together to snap over the container's neck as the collet is telescoped onto the container's neck. A different gripping chuck is used for each size range of bottles. Accordingly, to convert the conveyor to a different bottle size range, each gripping chuck had to be replaced.